CHAPTER XXVIII
ISHMAEL'S HERITAGE
There was something very dreadful about Farish M'Kissock's appearance as he came shuffling forward from the corner under the gallery. His torn and travel-stained white robe gave him a ghostly aspect which was heightened by the cold and clammy pallor of his face, his sunken eyes, the matted, blood-stained tangle of grey hair that merged into a long, unkempt beard and moustache. He moved like an automaton, with all his limbs and joints loose. The stamp of death was on him.
The Duchess of Dawn shrank into the ingle behind her as he approached, and her noble nephew backed after her, one elbow uplifted, fists clenched, with the apparent idea of protecting her from that spectre-like apparition; at whom Herries also was gazing, aghast but motionless, while Mr. Jobling, with bulging eyes and open mouth, felt about him as if for some friendly hand to clutch at and, finding none, laid hold of Slyne by the coat—who struck his fingers away with a muttered oath. Slyne and Captain Dove and Justin Carthew were all regarding him with blank dismay. Sallie uttered a little, low, pitiful cry as she recognised in the worn-out wreck who had halted mutely a few paces away the man she had seen only a month or two before in the prime of life and the plenitude of his power, the Emir El Farish.
His burning eyes met and held Captain Dove's cowed, murderous, questing glance for a moment; and then he laughed, in a most grisly manner.
"I'm dying now, Captain Dove," said he, in a strong, deep voice that contrasted strangely with his obvious bodily exhaustion, "a day or two sooner than need have been—but for you. You're hale and strong yet. You'll fight hard—when the hangman and his mates come quietly into your cell at daybreak to pinion you. And, when you're standing on the trap, with your head in a bag and the knot in a new rope rasping under one ear, you'll think of me that's waiting for you in the pit below the scaffold.
"But that's for by and by; and there's to-day to be done with first." He laughed again, in such a fashion that the listeners shuddered. "I told you there was nothing at all that would avail you against me," said he. "Maybe you'll believe me now!"
Captain Dove looked furtively round at the others' faces, and spoke, with obvious difficulty. "I've no idea what you're talking about—"
"I found M'Kissock—where you left him," interrupted Lord Jura, as if to say that it was needless now to deny anything.
"You'd better send him back there, then," Captain Dove retorted rancorously. "The man's mad—and dangerous. That's why I had him shut up. He thinks he has some grudge against you, too. Take care he doesn't—"